Chapter 1300 - The Army's Marriage Question

Dongmen Chuiyu had drunk too much to register all the maneuvering. He continued his eloquent discourse:

"Regarding Huang Xiong's squad fraternizing with women, we should recognize that in reality, it was Huang Xiong's squad being seduced by women. The reason is simple: there wasn't enough food! Starving and freezing women, in order to survive, could only use their bodies to obtain a chance at life. Otherwise, lacking the physical strength, they couldn't do as the men did—carrying supplies for the Northern Expedition Detachment, clearing corpses and garbage to earn food—and would starve to death. There is nothing at all to criticize about what the women did. As for the young men of Huang Xiong's squad being unable to resist this temptation, that really is understandable. Our military, after all, is not made up of Puritans, and relevant regulations don't prohibit seeking female companionship. With women desperately scarce in Lingao and suddenly having willing ones appearing at their doorstep, how many could resist? Therefore, that Huang Xiong's squad was defeated by sugar-coated bullets is also understandable."

After this impassioned speech, before Wei Aiwen could express his appreciation, Dongmen Chuiyu's head suddenly drooped as if he had entered some kind of cognitive freeze, a faint snoring sound emanating from his nose. Just as Wei Aiwen was about to call over a female orderly to help carry Secretary Dongmen to the rest room, his eyes opened again and he continued holding forth:

"Huang Xiong's biggest problem consists of two things!"

Wei Aiwen thought: if it's the biggest, then how can there be two? But he continued to show that he was all ears.

"The biggest mistake is: he unauthorized allowed an unpurified native into a military sensitive area. Though a squad leader's command post is merely a basic-level headquarters, we still can't treat steamed buns as anything less than proper provisions! Such thinking is wrong!" Dongmen Chuiyu suddenly became quite agitated, as though he himself were the squad leader being dismissed as a mere steamed bun. "The most serious mistake is that he failed to maintain unit discipline! He let his soldiers mess around with women freely! As I said: messing around with women isn't a crime, but messing around with unpurified native women like this—what if they catch a venereal disease? Even if they don't catch VD, catching skin diseases or scabies wouldn't be good either!"

"So then, your recommended disposition is?"

"Let's skip the demotion. Old Huang is after all a veteran in the military—he's already missed quite a few opportunities, and dropping another rank would put him even further behind. I think his meritorious service from this Shandong operation should just be cancelled out." Dongmen Chuiyu said. "Those soldiers, follow your recommendation and transfer them all to the White Horse units as NCOs."

"Alright, we'll go with your recommendation." Wei Aiwen assumed an expression of "heartfelt agreement" and nodded repeatedly.

"Huang Xiong's matter isn't anything special—but the troops' lower-body problems still need to be solved..." Dongmen Chuiyu's voice grew lower and lower, and he once again leaned back on the sofa in silence.

"Help Chief Dongmen to the rest room." Two female orderlies acknowledged the order and were about to step forward when Wei Aiwen thought better of it and changed his instructions: "Go call the teahouse servers to help him."

Wei Aiwen watched Dongmen Chuiyu being escorted out, glanced at his watch, said a few words to the others, and took his leave early—he still had things to do.

Back in the Political Affairs Office in the General Staff compound in Bairren City, Wei Aiwen settled in. Though the Political Affairs Office was only a "division" under the General Staff, it was actually much larger and more powerful than other "divisions." For a Council that placed such emphasis on "political work," this was hardly surprising. Wei Aiwen often styled himself "Director of the General Political Department" in his daily work—and in truth, his self-assessment was not outlandish. The Political Affairs Office of the General Staff was, to a certain extent, the General Political Department of the Fubo Army.

He instructed the duty female orderly to light the gas lamp and bring him a cup of "Golden South Sea" coffee. Wei Aiwen settled into his rattan-backed chair, lit a cigar, and began to contemplate.

The last thing Dongmen Chuiyu said before leaving was an issue Wei Aiwen had long wanted to discuss with this General Staff Secretary, but unfortunately the man had drunk too much today to engage in detailed conversation.

Huang Xiong's case had in fact exposed a hidden concern that had long troubled the transmigrator leadership of the Fubo Army: how to address soldiers' sexual needs.

Since ancient times, the sexual needs of soldiers had been a problem that gave rulers headaches. "Rape and plunder" was practically a tradition of classical armies. Even modern armies that emphasized discipline saw rape and promiscuous liaisons that were commonplace and impossible to stamp out despite repeated prohibitions.

While rape seriously damaged popular support and soured military-civilian relations, voluntary promiscuity wasn't exactly a good thing either. During World War II, the American military might have had a lesser reputation for rape than other armies, but their promiscuous behavior—enabled by abundant C-rations and nylon stockings—drove sexually transmitted disease rates among soldiers into the double digits.

As long as rulers weren't warlords in a chaotic age, they had to consider properly handling soldiers' sexual needs to maintain basic popular support, morale, and health. The most common method was camp followers or tacitly permitting similar civilian operators to exist—the latter being the red-light districts that invariably "naturally formed" near American military bases.

Although some transmigrators cited the PLA—especially during the Red Army era—as a counterexample, Wei Aiwen felt that was a special situation under special historical conditions. Such a puritanical army with a strong spirit of self-sacrifice first required a leadership collective with puritanical consciousness to lead it. The Council clearly didn't have that disposition—they couldn't even fake it convincingly.

When the leaders themselves aspired to three wives and four concubines and building "ethnological specimen collections," how could they demand abstinence from their subordinates? That would make them just like the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. And the Taiping's idealism had collapsed quite early.

The Fubo Army's approach to this issue was two-pronged. On one hand, they kept soldiers constantly busy, wearing out their physical and mental energy: beyond normal duty and training, a considerable portion of each week was devoted to "supporting construction" tasks. On the other hand, since the Fubo Army's founding, there had been no regulation "prohibiting patronizing prostitutes." Soldiers on their rare days off could visit yellow-licensed brothels for some indulgence. This was a form of "channeling."

However, the extreme gender ratio in Council-controlled society made prostitutes' business boom beyond measure, causing prices for flesh to skyrocket. Prostitutes were also overwhelmed by "business." Consequently, not every soldier willing to spend money could have his wishes fulfilled. For this reason, quite a few transmigrators had suggested establishing something like the Great Song's "camp followers"—a system of military prostitutes—but it was ultimately dropped because most transmigrators found it unacceptable.

Furthermore, using prostitutes as a means of satisfying soldiers' sexual needs could only work as a short-term measure, because prostitutes couldn't fulfill the officers' and soldiers' need for families.

Under current military preparedness conditions, Fubo Army officers and soldiers had virtually no prospect of mass demobilization unless disabled. The current Fubo Army was essentially a "professionalized" military. This meant that what had originally only needed to consider officers' marriage problems had now become an army-wide issue.

Since Operation Engine began, Wei Aiwen had been working on formulating a plan to address the military's marriage problem.

He had specifically discussed solving officers' and soldiers' marriage problems with Liu Muzhou, suggesting whether they could organize some "military-civilian matchmaking events" after Operation Engine concluded. But Liu Muzhou expressed difficulty: the unmarried and widowed women being transported might not even be enough to solve the marriage problems of workers and administrators in the Council's various industrial and agricultural enterprises—Wei Aiwen certainly wasn't the only transmigrator coming to him asking to solve marriage problems for their subordinates.

However, military issues were always major issues, and Liu Muzhou couldn't simply brush them off. So he agreed to organize several "military-civilian matchmaking events." The precondition was that Wei Aiwen had to strictly control the eligibility standards and couldn't solve marriages on a large scale.

"No problem. Having some resolution is better than having none. At least it gives people something to hope for."

Wei Aiwen was quite familiar with many political work policies and methods from PLA history. Since they were addressing military marriage problems, something like the "258 Regulation" inevitably came to mind.

Copying it directly wouldn't work, but specific policies could be formulated following this approach.

The so-called "258 Regulation" was a set of three standards that cadres during the War of Resistance had to simultaneously meet in order to marry: at least twenty-five years old; eight years of military service (or Party membership); and regimental-level cadre or above.

Wei Aiwen roughly followed suit and created similar standards: the twenty-five-year-old requirement could be adopted directly. Three years or more of military service or service to the Council, and the rank of junior lieutenant or above.

This drastically reduced the number of eligible officers—after all, the highest rank held by any naturalized citizen currently was captain. The junior lieutenant rank and three-year service requirement were enough to eliminate most candidates.

As for soldiers' marriage problems, that couldn't yet be put on the agenda. However, he had already discussed with Liu Muzhou the hope that the Civil Affairs department would regularly organize special civilian "comfort" services—purchased by the military or expensed as "supporting the troops" costs within local administrative budgets.

Dongmen Chuiyu would presumably not object to this proposal. After all, conditions were limited at present—moreover, allowing soldiers to marry on a large scale raised the issue of family accompaniment, and the Fubo Army wasn't the American military. They didn't yet have the capability to resettle soldiers' families near bases. He set his cigar in the ashtray and picked up two documents that staff had prepared the previous day.

The first document was the award citation for Huang Xiong's service during "Operation Engine": Huang Xiong was to receive a Second-Class Service Medal. The second was the disciplinary action revoking the Second-Class Service Medal Huang Xiong had earned during Operation Engine.

(End of Chapter)